


You sent for me

by isa_belle



Series: Dream smp [7]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Technoblade Has a Heart (Video Blogging RPF), TommyInnit Needs a Hug (Video Blogging RPF), Trauma, and he should be, dadza is worried about his kid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28575033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isa_belle/pseuds/isa_belle
Summary: “When I told him the story of Theseus,” Techno starts, and Phil feels his chest seize. “It wasn’t a threat. It was a warning.”
Relationships: Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Series: Dream smp [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2068152
Comments: 11
Kudos: 207





	You sent for me

**Author's Note:**

> yesterday’s streams really fucked me up, y’all. anyway. here you go. 
> 
> title from Hamilton  
> “You great unfinished symphony, you sent for me  
> You let me make a difference, a place where even orphan immigrants  
> Can leave their fingerprints and rise up.”

Unfinished symphonies, again and again. Books with no ends, stories with no conclusions, words caught in the throat. Unfinished symphonies, haunting him, sticking to his kids like glue on tiny hands. 

Phil can see him in his mind if he tries. Little Tommy, standing outside the community house in the pouring rain, clutching Wil’s jacket to fight the chill. All scarred skin and young eyes and desperation, bandaids on his hands and cheeks, placed with care, compass around his neck.

He can see Tommy with that twist in his brow. His last stitch effort to bring everything together in a way that makes things okay again. Pulling and tugging at strings to yank it all back into place, bring Tubbo back to him, save L’manburg, get his disks. Clinging onto hope like a lifeline. 

_What’s the point in doing anything if you’ve lost all hope?_

“‘L’manburg is my unfinished symphony. And once I get back my disks. It’ll be finished. The melody will be over.‘ That’s what he said.”

Techno leans against a counter in the house, fiddling with his fingers the way he does when he’s feeling too much to keep in him anymore, letting it leak out a bit, the pent up nervous energy pouring out in every twitch of his hands. Tommy is asleep below, the silence of it giving the air around them an almost echoey quality. It’s hollow without chatter. Not quite lifeless, but Tommy has always brought a certain sense of lively with him, dragging it behind as he barrels through conversation like a bull in a china shop. The room is dark except a lamp on a table and the dull glow of the moon cast through the window, orange light against blue.

Phil can picture Tommy, staring his brother down with that stubborn fire of determination, red hot passion and clenched fists. (Not quite the same flame it used to be. No, it has a new sadness too it, a shaky vulnerability, and a jittery fear. Tommy was never the type to sit still before, but now he seems practically incapable, bouncing off the walls and pacing obsessively. And even now, after weeks of Phil being home, of  _ longer _ with Techno,  _ safe_, he still curls away from raised voices, shriveling. He winces at sudden jerks in movement, like he’s scared to stay for too long. He’s more complicit than he’s ever been. Does what they ask. It would be nice if not for the everything else about it. It isn’t polite. It’s afraid, it’s subdued. And it scares the living hell out of Phil, that tired achey droop to his eyes and the sag in his shoulders.)

“It sounded...” Technoblade trails off for a moment, searching for the right word, “final.”

And Phil doesn’t like the sound of that. He’s no fool. He’s seen the jumpiness in his youngest the weeks he’d been out of house arrest. He’s seen the ghosts in his eyes, the hollow look the shadows paint on his face. The hesitance to trust, the dizzy confusion that so often clouds his blue blue eyes. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like to see his boy all scarred up. 

“I’m worried.” Says Technoblade, not meeting his eyes. “About Tommy. He’s got this idea in his head, like he has do everything himself.” He twists the emerald dangling from his ear, unable to be still. (He and Tommy have more in common than he’d probably like to admit. Stubborn and loyal and full of energy and rage. Spitfires in their own right. Phil always saw it. Wilbur too.)

Phil sighs, and the room seems to swallow the sound. 

“I know,” he says. “He doesn’t.”

“What the hell did Dream do to him, Phil?” He hears the way Techno tries to stay passive, but the shake in his voice betrays his emotions clear as day. Phil sees the tremble in his fists, his jaw jutting out, like he’s baring his tusks. Phil taps his fingers on the table. 

“I dunno, Techno. But I think we’ve both got a pretty good idea.”

“I don’t know if you do,” he says. He turns away from the counters, cape swishing behind him as he paces, creaky footsteps on wooden floors. His voice is level but quick in that way it gets when he’s upset. “Phil, you weren’t here when I found him. He was living under my house like a raccoon, stealing my things and then hiding away.”

Phil knows this. Techno has told him already. But he still hates the idea of it. Tommy in a dark cave, drowning in the bitter cold, too afraid to trust his own family for help. It makes him sick. 

“He was skin and bones when I found him. Bruised and cut up and bloody. It’s a miracle he managed to survive. And when I let him in? He looked at the corners of the house like they were gonna bite him. He didn’t sleep, he didn’t eat. And he was  _ quiet_.”

Phil swallows, running a hand through his hair. The words are suffocating, in a way. He knows these things, objectively. He knows that Tommy was in rough shape, that Dream probably fucked him up something awful. But hearing Techno say it like  _ that _ makes it worse somehow. Phil’s stomach churns, and Techno’s eyes burn in the hazy light of the moon. 

“How he is now? This is better than he’s been since he got here. I don’t think you get it Phil. I don’t think you  _ can _ get it, you never  _ saw_.”

Technoblade stops pacing abruptly, marches over to the table and sits down, resting his face in his hands. Phil puts a hand on his shoulder, and he leans into the touch. 

“He could’ve come to me.” His voice is just above a whisper. “I would’ve helped him.”

“I know.”

“Why didn’t he come to me?”

Phil sighs again. “I think we both know the answer to that too.”

“When I told him the story of Theseus,” he starts, and Phil feels his chest seize. “It wasn’t a threat. It was a warning.”

“Maybe you thought of it that way,” he’s careful with his words, he doesn’t wanna slip up and say the wrong thing. Gods know he’s done that too many times already. “But it sure seemed like that to him. You blew up his country, his home. And right after Wilbur-“ his breath halts, “ _you know_.”

“I don’t want him to be a hero, Phil. And he’s still trying I can tell, this whole ‘unfinished symphony’ business, that’s all this is. He wants to make everything fit back together but it won’t. I wasn’t lying when I told him that good things don’t happen to heroes.”

“You told him to die, Techno, cut him some slack for not wanting to dive right into your arms when he was afraid.”

Unfinished symphonies and perfectly broken tragedies. The damn things hunted him, nailed him to the wall with arrows.

He wishes his kids weren’t so dead set on their pretty little narratives. Life isn’t supposed to be poetic and tragic. You don’t have to live like your fate is inevitable, you just have to  _ live_. Phil thought he taught them that. 

Technoblade rambles on about Theseus and exiles like it means anything. It didn’t! Not until he said it out loud. Not until he put the words out in the air to creep into Tommy’s thoughts, like an infection, eating away at him. Wilbur dug his own little hole with his Checkov’s gun, left Tommy to drown. They’re obsessed. They’re obsessed with these tales of triumph and betrayal, and shattered pieces of ends. 

He never asked for storybook characters. He didn’t want protagonists and anti-heroes. All he wanted, all he  wants , was his family. 

And of course he blames himself. How could he not. He didn’t have to kill Wilbur. (But didn’t he? That resignation in his eyes, subtle plea in gaps of his words. Phil is a merciful man, and of course he believes his son is deserving of that mercy, no matter what he did. Perhaps that makes him a fool, throttled by his own affection, but he doesn’t care, not really, not when it comes to his family.) He could’ve come sooner. He  _ should _ have. He left Tommy to that  _ place_, Logstedshire, its wooden walls and empty forests, wind for company. Tommy is codependent, he always has been, he thrives off of people. He clung to his brothers like a leech as a boy, loyal to a fault. Phil should have known what isolation would do to him, especially isolation with Dream, the ‘ _puppet master_.’ The man is known for manipulating people, it’s practically his trademark. 

Phil feels like an idiot. He feels like a horrible father. He thinks of Techno, mind bent on revenge, skulls lining his walls, firework pointed at the forehead of a  _ child._ He thinks of Wilbur’s body heavy in his arms. He feels like he failed. 

_ L’manburg is my unfinished symphony. And once I get back my disks. It’ll be finished. The melody will be over. _

It’s not his job to finish anything. It wasn’t Wilbur’s and it certainly isn’t Tommy’s. 

_ Can’t you see history repeating itself? _

Phil doesn’t want to lose another son. He _won’t_. But he can see Tommy fraying at the edges. He’s fragile, a wind away from falling apart, holding himself together with weak strings. Phil tries to hold him too, as best he can, but he can’t help but feel like it’s not enough. His ideals are still in there, fighting and fighting their way to the top. But he’s been beaten into submission one too many times, his confidence has been shaken by countless loss. His brothers, his friend, his nation. 

He’s in the dark, so he can’t see that he’s not alone anymore. 

“You gave him the words Techno, whether you intended to or not, you put the idea in his head.”

He sighs, rubbing his face with his hands. “I didn’t mean to fuck him up.”

Phil pats his shoulder. “That doesn’t mean you didn’t.”

And Phil knows the feeling. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! if you like it, leave a comment, i will love you forever :D
> 
> Byee


End file.
